{"id":4871,"date":"2019-07-05T11:03:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/?p=4871"},"modified":"2019-07-05T11:03:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:03:06","slug":"what-language-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/2019\/07\/what-language-barrier\/","title":{"rendered":"What language barrier?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, I travelled to seven countries in Europe: Italy, France, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland. Surprisingly, the countries I loved the most were the countries where I couldn\u2019t easily speak English. I\u2019ve been studying Spanish for years and was ready to use it since romance languages are very similar. I had a true test for my language affinity during our free day in Rome, Italy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sistine Chapel contains a fresco called <\/span>The Creation of Adam<\/span><\/i> by Michelangelo. After going through several hallways, twists, turns, and rooms, we finally made it into the actual chapel. It was packed and chaotic in there and we did not know where the painting was. I decided to use this as an opportunity to speak Spanish. I went up to the guard and asked \u201c\u00bfhablas espa\u00f1ol?\u201d He shook his head \u201cno\u201d and as I was about to walk away defeated, he said, \u201ccontinue\u201d in Italian. Hopeful, I proceeded to ask, \u201c\u00bfd\u00f3nde est\u00e1 la pintura con los dedos tocando?\u201d while motioning with my fingers. He understood that I asked, \u201cwhere is the painting with the fingers touching?\u201d and while saying \u201c\u0f0fah\u00ed!\u201d pointed up to the ceiling. I exclaimed \u201c\u0f0fgrazie!\u201d ran back to my group, and pointed up to the ceiling to they could see the painting as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

All day and for the duration of the trip, I could not keep reliving this moment. I told everyone on the trip and my parents and friends back home. Throughout our time in Italy, I was able to read signs and translate menus. However, I never needed to speak Italian or Spanish except for saying thank you-\u201cgrazie\u201d and asking for the bill, \u201cil conto.\u201d I was so proud of myself for not letting a language barrier hold me back that I even contemplated emailing my Spanish teachers about this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

The Creation of Adam<\/span><\/i> by Michelangelo<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, I travelled to seven countries in Europe: Italy, France, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland. Surprisingly, the countries I loved the most were the countries where I couldn\u2019t easily speak English. I\u2019ve been studying Spanish for years and was ready to use it since romance languages are very similar. I had a true […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":622,"featured_media":4873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,28,23,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-led","category-italy","category-maymester","category-the-grand-tour-art-and-gardens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4874,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions\/4874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}